| Software as a Service is still in its early days and | | | | event scheduling, analytics, etc. CRM systems are the |
| even now contributing to success of most small and | | | | most popular and widely adopted SaaS applications. |
| medium sized businesses (SMBs). Compared to | | | | 2. Web conferencing applications — SaaS |
| on-premise or traditional business applications and | | | | based web conferencing has revolutionized the whole |
| technologies, SaaS holds many advantages. For small | | | | world of web conferencing. Now companies/persons |
| and medium sized businesses having lesser number of | | | | can share and present documents, power-points, |
| employees, SaaS is an excellent opportunity. | | | | graphics, whiteboards with out the need of a server, |
| Software as a Service (SaaS) is now evolving as the | | | | software installation and supporting technical staff. |
| strategy for overcoming most talked recession. More | | | | The same can be noted with VoIP and PBX systems. |
| and more companies are now changing to SaaS | | | | 3. Sales Force Automation (SFA) systems — |
| based applications from on premise applications and | | | | These are on demand systems for enhancing |
| more and more companies are now offering their | | | | co-operation between sales peoples by providing |
| products/services in SaaS model. Software as a | | | | them proper communication, analysis, scheduling and |
| Service is still in its early days and even now | | | | data sharing tools. There are independent SFA |
| contributing to success of most small and medium | | | | systems and SFA systems integrated with CRM |
| sized businesses (SMBs). Compared to on-premise or | | | | systems. |
| traditional business applications and technologies, SaaS | | | | 4. Contact management (email) applications. These |
| holds many advantages; it is cheap, easy to | | | | are business applications for storing customer and |
| implement, has higher user adoption rates, has web | | | | employee details and communicating with them with |
| based interface, global accessibility, easy to go | | | | the help of an e-mail client, usually MS Outlook. Like |
| wireless, easy to customize, no cost for | | | | SFA systems, contact management applications may |
| maintenance, minimum need of technical knowledge, | | | | either independent or integrated with CRM or SFA |
| no in-house data warehousing requirements, no need | | | | systems. |
| for updates or additional purchases, open-source | | | | 5. Document management and data back up |
| nature (not for all), per user fee schedule, advanced | | | | applications — for storing and sharing data |
| contact and data sharing tools, easy integration with | | | | related to company, products, customers, etc in a |
| existing systems, and so on. For small and medium | | | | remote place secured from most data disasters. All |
| sized businesses having lesser number of employees | | | | or most of the above applications were once |
| (application users), SaaS offer an excellent | | | | available only to large enterprises because of the |
| opportunity; because they get most sophisticated | | | | cost involved in developing them and implementing |
| system for lowest costs. As said earlier, SaaS is still in | | | | them. But now with SaaS applications SMBs can |
| its early days, and now only a few types of SaaS | | | | compete with these large enterprises by subscribing |
| applications are available for commercial purposes. | | | | to applications which often outperform big business |
| Most promising SaaS applications for SMBs include: | | | | applications. But Software as a Service is not that |
| 1. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) | | | | much a perfect solution. The main concern is data |
| applications — They help you to automate and | | | | security, as you are sharing your precious business |
| manage all or most of your business practices | | | | data with a second person over. Many large and |
| including customer service, product sales, after sale | | | | medium sized businesses are avoiding SaaS |
| service, contact management, account management, | | | | applications because of the above reason. |